SAN FRANCISCO—Darwin’s edict of survival of the fittest is alive and well in the crowded app space, and hoteliers are not immune, according to panelists.
Only the best survive, which makes it imperative to adopt best practices and to never stop improving, according to the panel of hotel app experts during the 7th annual Social Media & Mobile Strategies for Travel conference hosted by EyeforTravel.
“One of our core values as a company … is to question. We’re always saying, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’” said Marissa Chacko, senior product manager at HotelTonight.
Sometimes that means killing pet projects and starting over, she said.
“We’re always questioning what we’ve done and where to go. … It’s that constant mentality of being to throw out everything and rethink each page,” she added.
That philosophy is near and dear to Matthew McCroskey’s heart. As head of mobile product for Lonely Planet, he’s overseen a complete overhaul of Lonely Planet’s app presence, which comprised more than 175 different apps for each city in the company’s content database.
“You need to know when to iterate and know when to take a step back and reboot,” he said, adding “listen to your users.”
Work isn’t done when the app goes to launch, McCroskey said. “Your work is never done. This is a rapidly changing market.”
The panelists shared several other lessons during 60-minute session.
Find your niche
When Lonely Planet acquired TouristEye, the latter was providing unique, in-depth destination guides for a 1,000 locations. Executives quickly learned that users don’t read lengthy descriptions and instead prefer more points of interest, pricing information and photos.
The platform now provides such information in an easier-to-use trip-planning app that prompts users to generate their own content, such as reviews and ratings.
“It worked really well,” McCroskey said. “The concept is simple. We’re going to help you find cool stuff to do every weekend, and we’re going to help you make it happen. They executed it really well. They made a promise and kept that promise with users.”
Ask for user insight early
There’s nothing worse than toiling away in a vacuum on a new feature that users never wanted in the first place, said HotelTonight’s Chacko.
“The sooner you can get prototypes in front of users and see what they react to, it will just save you so much headache down the road,” she said.
JD Lasica has employed that process while building Cruiseable, a startup focusing on the cruise experience that has yet to launch. He looks to early adopters and close confidantes whose opinions he trusts.
“Show them early versions of your product so you can get to later stage versions as quickly as possible,” he said.
Measure everything
User feedback doesn’t end when an app launches. In addition to reviews and written feedback, developers should measure every action throughout the app, panelists agreed.
The TouristEye team was near obsessive in their measuring, McCroskey said. That insight proved invaluable as Lonely Planet worked with them during the relaunch.
“They measured everything from the beginning. … That’s how they learned what was working and what wasn’t,” he said.
Think like a user
“We always think about user behavior, what will not be spammy, what will not annoy them,” said Katherine Bose, head of mobile partnerships, Americas, for TripAdvisor.
She said that way of thinking is reinforced through the company by its CEO, Stephen Kaufer.
He constantly asks, “Will a user take this action? And can we hit repeat on this 10 million times?” Bose said.
Enlist the power of the crowd
TripAdvisor was built on this concept, Bose said. The website—and the app it’s spawned—is only as good as the millions of reviews on which it was built.
Lasica agreed, pointing to applications such as Instagram, Gogobot and YouTube as examples.
“What do they all have in common? They don’t go out and hire tons of editors and staff to create content. They create an easy, fun way for people to create content on their behalf.
“Think about how to leverage the enthusiasm in whatever sector you’re in,” he said.
Design for specific devices
Though some companies throw both smartphones and tablets in the mobile or app bucket, TripAdvisor views them separately, Bose said.
That viewpoint is backed by customer behavior, she said. While users turn to TripAdvisor’s smartphone app for reviews, destination guides and booking, the tablet platform is almost entirely transactional in nature.
The company went further by designing separate apps for both the Android and iOS operating systems.
“What we know now is that two operating systems have won—for now,” Bose said. “We made the decision to give a really great experience to 95% of market instead of crummy experience to 100%.”
Get more visual
“Everything’s becoming more bite sized, more visual,” Lasica said.
The travel industry has an opportunity to take advantage, he added. A hotel, for instance, can convey so much of the guest experience through simple imagery.
“It’s really great eye candy,” Lasica added.
Be more human
“I see so many serious brands out there,” Lasica said.
Not only does that inhibit creativity among the internal staff, but it also makes it more difficult for those brands to engage to their customers, he said. Especially in the app space, it pays to develop an accessible, authentic tone of voice.
Telling the brand’s origin story is one way to do that. Nothing humanizes a company like conveying its humble beginnings, Lasica said.
“That can create an emotional connection with your customers,” he said.